A Little Overdue

I am so sorry to everyone for completely slacking off on the blog!  Gosh I feel dumb after saying I would update it every week - please forgive me!!

Starting back up from the last post:

My host parents went down to the south of Sweden for a short vacation spent hiking and visiting my host mom's mother.  During the week, my host dad's daughter, Mette, who doesn't live at home anymore, stayed at the house to take care of us.  Our numbers were increased by one when my host brother, Even, came home from a summer spent working in Norway.  The first time we met, we spent about 3/4 of the night staying up and watching movie after movie.  It wasn't smart since I had school the next day, but I'm not apologizing.  

That week was full of adventures - including getting terribly lost on a run, delicious home made pizza, more movie nights, and grocery shopping (it really is fun with siblings).  We had some great food ranging from Thai to spaghetti to virgin margaritas and guacamole.  It was semi-adults watching teenagers, so there was a higher degree of immaturity in the house.  Regardless, it was a blast.

On Friday, September 13, Even took me with him and some friends to a concert in Liseberg (a famous amusement park in Gothenburg).  The act was Timo Räisänen, a sort of indie rock artist native to Gothenburg.  It was a lot of fun and the music was great!  The park was all lit up and everything was cozy and surreal.  We were standing pretty close to the stage, so we got a good view.  We made our way home late after the concert and wandered around for a while in a group of four or five.  We finally got home around midnight and I pretty much just collapsed in my bed.  

The next day, Lars took me and Vegard to an old fortress that was on an island about 45 minutes away.  We got a late start, but we got to spend a lovely afternoon on the island.  The views from the fortress were gorgeous and it was quite a workout to climb up the winding stairs to higher ground.  We brought along fika, which we ate on a large hill over looking the water.  It was to be the last day of good summer-y weather, so we ate dinner on the deck later that evening.   

Speaking of the weather, it's been quite the roller coaster in and of itself.  Fall in Gothenburg means dreary and rainy and cold.  My day dreams of crisp autumn air with a sharp breeze and nip in the air were misplaced and twice, I was caught in a hard rain shower on the way to school.  It was great how I was jacket-less wearing a skirt, tights, and flats both times.  No one ever said I learn too quickly from my mistakes... what can I say? I'm an optimist.  Soggy feet are a great way to put a damper on your day, but I had sympathetic classmates who patiently listened to my whining and laughed at how unprepared I was.  

The weather is also unpredictable in that there will be an occasional day of fantastic weather that just throws everyone off.  It's enough to keep my closet door open just a little bit, enough to see the colorful summer dresses I still want to wear.  Well, I don't quite know what I was thinking bringing so many fair weather clothes.  I should have known better right?  Wrong, fashion over comfort 9 times out of 10.  Although it's oversized men's flannels and leggings 1 time out of ten.  So I'm not THAT hard core. 

School has been so much fun!  Tell me, is it crazy that my favorite class is gym?  It's probably because the class is only once a week and we always do something really fun.  The first week, we played ultimate frisbee and I dominated.  There is a fiercely competitive side of me that, when awakened, makes for the most fun and the biggest rush.  My classmates are now amused by my intensity during games and stay out of my way.  I was quick to identify the good players on both teams and I made friends with them, with plans to form an elite team later on.  The following week we played beach volleyball, which I was super excited about.  I did end up having a pretty elite team, but it wasn't worth it because the other teams were so bad.  A wasted team and wasted energy - there was no competition whatsoever.  I suppose I will have to sacrifice my need for perfection for the sake of a good game. 

As for the Swedish, it's been a struggle.  I have been learning, and lately my friends like to do brief language sessions where I am only allowed to speak Swedish for a period of time.  Most of my teachers have asked me to just study Swedish during the classes that I can't participate in.  It's a good motivator to learn as quickly as I can so I can really join the class.  It's a bit frustrating, because I feel like I don't learn nearly as quickly as I want to.  I have this internal struggle of whether to be mad at myself for not being very good after a whole month in the country, or for being encouraging that I have come so far in only a month.  To be honest, a big hurdle to get over is Japanese.  While I am not fluent in Japanese, I have a solid amount of words floating around my head that jumble with the Swedish.  While I was Skyping with my mom on her birthday a couple weeks ago, I was speaking Japanese and had a few moments when I couldn't find the right word - but the Swedish word came quickly to mind.  Most often, however, I will be trying to speak Swedish and a bit of Japanese sneaks in.  When someone unexpectedly confronts me in Swedish, like strangers, I start to panic and blurt out random Japanese words, looking for the Swedish words until I give up and admit a defeated "sorry, I don't really speak Swedish."  When I try to form sentences or converse in Swedish, Japanese filler words will pop in.  My friends and family find it funny when they catch a Japanese word here and there when I'm trying to speak.  As much as I appreciate being bilingual, it's often hard to fit in a third.  

Last Saturday, I went to a stake wide youth activity that was about two hours away.  It was a long day filled with activities like a picture race and little workshops.  I got to meet a lot of new people and it was fun!  At the end of the day, there was a two and a half hour dance, which was an interesting experience.  The music was infinitely better than any of the other dances I have ever been to, and there were maybe half as many people as I was used to.  The cultural hall itself was actually pretty small.  Someone had decorated it by hanging up strings of dangling CD's, which lots of people only ended up hitting their heads on.  Here, there is really no pressure to be dancing all the time.  Many people sit on the couches and chairs that line the walls and chat with their friends.  There are no slow songs at all in the playlist.  When do you dance together, you may ask?  Well, Swedes actually don't slow dance together, but they sort of fast dance together?  I don't know how you can describe it, but basically a guy will go up to a girl and ask her to dance.  Since there are only fast songs, this can be at any moment.  The boy then leads the girl around the dance floor, moving side to side at a fast tempo with a strange in-and-out motion with the clasped hands.  Twirls and spins are pretty common as well.  To be honest, it's a lot more fun than a slow dance.  There is more opportunity to be silly and laugh.  It was a new experience that proved to be very fun. 

These are the highlights of my past few weeks, again I am so sorry to have neglected my blog for so long!  I will do my best to be better.  Over all, it's been a little over a month in Sweden and I have never been happier.  Everyday is a new adventure, a new learning experience.  It's so much fun to meet new people and connect with them at different levels over things one would normally find mundane.  This whole language situation has been pretty rough, but it's been a journey without a lack of laughter and good humor.  While I miss my friends and family back home (and homecoming), I am glad to be here.  I hope everyone is doing well, please update me!  I love hearing from people and being caught up on what's happening over the pond.  Have a great week everyone!

With Even and Simon, headed to the concert

Timo!!

With Sofia during lunch

KarlAlex and Daniela

A church we passed on the way to the fortress

The front of the fortress

The courtyard

Up on higher ground

One of the courtyards featuring Vegard

Finally got Vegard to pose with me.  I work with what I have :)

Trying to sneak in a picture with the host brother.  Please note my fantastic new leg muscles

The view of the fortress behind our fika spot

The view of the island from our fika spot

Surströmming

This week was a pretty defining moment in my year; it was the week I ate surströmming.  For those of you unfamiliar with the food, it is a fermented fish that is famous for the absolutely foul smell and taste it has.  It's traditional in Swedish culture, but most Swedes I have met have not tried it.  Words really cannot express to you the intensity of this pungent odor.  It smells like an outhouse on the shore of a salty beach with dead, rotting fish all around you intensified and compressed into a can.  It's an accomplishment to be sick after your first bite, as opposed to before.  It is made from small Baltic herrings that are fermented (basically rotten).  Surströmming is traditionally eaten towards the end of summer on a thin, hard bread with potato and onion and butter.  A can of this must always be opened outside, but is probably best eaten inside because any fly that is within ten miles of this stuff will rush over (yes, it's that strong).  

It is slimy and tastes just about the way it smells, but surprisingly more salty and even a bit sharp.  The taste of this does not leave your mouth without hard work and it haunts you for a few days after you eat it with every little burp reminding you of your huge mistake.  I had heard about this before I came to Sweden and it is amusing to see that Swedes are not in fact nonchalant about this because it truly is disgusting to like 99.999% of the world population.  Most people I have met, especially my age, have not tried surströmming, so I joked with them that I am more Swedish than they are.

I got the opportunity to try this during a crawfish party, which is a tradition in Swedish culture.  Towards the end of summer, friends and family gather for multiple crawfish parties and such.  While surströmming is not a usual dish served, the people organizing this party thought it would be an interesting attraction.  It was a lot of fun!

Crawfish!

It was a little sad to see their little faces before you ripped them apart

So hard to do

About to try the rotten fish...

From Brown Cheese to MacBooks

Hej hej!

That's something I have noticed; In Sweden just one hej is simply not enough.  What if the person thinks your hej wasn't sincere enough?  Two is safe. 

So I'm going to try updating my blog every week or so.  I doubt I will miss more than a couple weeks throughout the year - my mom couldn't tolerate that :) I just want to take a quick moment to thank my parents with my whole heart for letting me come to Sweden, it really is the chance of a life time and I am so lucky.  We chat every so often and they are always there when I need them.  Thank you times a million to Bob and Tomoko!

It's been a little over two weeks in Europe and it feels like at least a month.  It has been so much fun and quite a bit of learning.  It is a little detrimental for me to be a native English speaker since it is so easy for me to get along on just that instead of forcing me to speaking Swedish.  However, I am surrounded by kind, supportive people who enjoy teaching me a new word a few times a day.  I've gotten in the habit of writing my new vocabulary down and laughing with my host brother later that evening when he tries to help me learn the pronunciation.  

My best teacher has been my host mom, who has such patience and a knack for explaining the grammar to me.  My classmates say that I am learning very quickly and they love to hear me speak.  In class today, I actually gave a mini presentation in "Swinglish" and I got a round of applause, which helped my ego.  My host brother is another story - he laughs at my pronunciation errors and says that I have a Japanese accent when I speak Swedish.  Which I said is ridiculous, since he has never heard a Japanese person speak Swedish.  All the same, I can report that I am making progress!

School has been a ton of fun and I appreciate how open and friendly my class is.  A few people are a bit shy about speaking English with me, but I would say that everyone is friendly if not outgoing.  I feel like I spend the majority of my time everyday with a new group of people and it's as natural as anything.  Whoever I sit next to in class is usually kind enough to translate a few things for me.  In the beginning of the week, more than a couple students raised their hands in the middle of class to tell the teacher that I was their exchange student and I don't understand very much Swedish yet.  The teachers were well informed, but it's lovely to know my class is watching out for me :)

Last Friday my class took a trip to the island of Brännö.  It's something of a school tradition and it makes me laugh how casual it is.  My teacher gave us a time to meet at the school, where we would all hop on a tram and then a ferry to the island.  Otherwise people were fine meeting us there and then ultimately finding their own way home after the end of the trip.  Compared to Swedish gymnasium, high school in the states feels like kindergarten when we had to hold hands to cross the street.  Many of my classmates had been to the island lots of times before, so they laughed at my awe in how beautiful it was!  We had an unusually warm day and a lazy afternoon of fika and get-to-know-you games.  

The next Saturday morning, we ate breakfast as a family and I got to try Norwegian porridge and brunost (It literally means brown cheese).  My host family is a blend of Swedish and Norwegian, but the Norwegians in the house sometimes do their own thing.  Like eating suspicious brown cheese that is the most sickening mix of sweet, nutty, and rotten and also slimy warm porridge with a clump of butter placed exactly in the center of the bowl, dusted in cinnamon and drowned in syrup.  I tried a little of everything and made my family cringe as I mixed everything in the bowl together to make even bitefuls of each component of the dish.  It makes perfect sense in my mind, but you don't. mix. the. porridge.  Europeans!  Whatcha gonna do; we have thought differently since the colonization.  

The buz around school this week has been the brand new MacBook Pros that all the first years get at my gymnasium.  After signing a slip, we were all handed a beautiful, shiny new laptop that people use in their classes and during breaks.  There are no restrictions on the use of the computer and we can do what we want with it until we give it back at the end of the year.  I've been struggling with the Swedish keyboard, but it has been fun to guess and check what each little icon will do when I push it.  However, I got my host brother to change everything to English for me later. 

Tonight my host family used the taco seasoning that I brought as a gift in our family meal.  It was apparently MUCH spicier than their usual taco seasoning, but I think they appreciated the more-authentic Mexican food.  I also made some Mexican wedding cookies for dessert which I'm hoping will turn out well.  Conclusion: I miss Mexican food and I miss El Parasol and Chipotle and Cafe Rio and spice and Los Alamos and someone please give me some real chili cheese fries right now I'm about to cry. k thanks. 

Walking to the beach on Brännö

Matilda, Emma, me and Clara at Brännö

On the ferry

Just a pineapple selfie

The sunset during a train ride with Vegard

Fika with some classmates

I love the streets in the city!  During a lunch hour spent wandering with friends

A cute little hidden pocket we find while wandering.  That is KarlAlex

School!

Want to know the good side about living in Sweden?



Well the flag is a big plus :)

That was a pun, I hope you get it!

These past few days have been quite crazy - trying to get over jet lag, settling in, and getting used to being the most clueless one in the room.  Slowly, ever slowly, I am learning more every day and I am doing my best to study in my free time and pick up a few new words daily.  I'm starting to get a better feel for the culture as well, so that's a plus.

This, my friends, is an interesting place to be.  They put the contents of our refrigerator condiments drawer in these big metal toothpaste-like tubes and sell them in bulk.  Ever had bacon cheese in a tube?  I have.  Oh but don't worry there's shrimp flavor too.  Maybe you want some caviar with your cracker bread?  Here let me squeeze some out for you.  There's even a little tube-holder in most refrigerators!  But this is the country who invented Tetra-Pak so perhaps they are ahead of the game.

Regardless, let me tell you, Swedish food:  On point.  Especially the food my host dad makes, he is an amazing cook and dinner has become my favorite part of the day.  I love that Swedish food is generally pretty simple and healthy, but hardy and very energizing.  I eat a lot but it's healthy food so let's be real, no shame.  Junk food doesn't even include the Swedish chocolate because that stuff is soul food brought down from a loving God, amen.  I've come to love Swedish breakfast as well!  I have never been a breakfast person, but now I love it with the variety of different breads and crackers and spreads and fruit that makes me happy.  The milk as well!  I am usually a die hard skim milk kind of person but there must be something wacky with these cows because this 1.5% milk is divine.  The butter is pretty delicious too.

There has been some success regarding the cat as well, she likes to come and lay on or beside me in the evenings before dinner when I am just chilling on the couch.  She will usually sleep or ask for attention, but she never fails to get in the way.  When my family and I are just sitting around on the couches and she is curled up next someone, every so often you will see a hand shoot up and flinch away from an attack.  She leaves her mark.  That's ok, I just want her to like me.... My host brother and I recently discovered that she does indeed love bacon cheese in a tube.

My love for fika grows yet still.  My host family and I will sometimes sit at the table after reading an excerpt from a church magazine and have fika for a while before bed.  It's really mostly just dessert and lots of fun talking, but I feel Swedish calling it fika.

So I started school today!  Yesterday was the orientation sort of day where they give you some information and you meet your klass (the group of students who you will be with throughout almost all of your subjects) and your teachers.  You stay for a couple hours and then you're free.  So it was yesterday that I saw my school for the first time!  It is in the center of Gothenburg in a beautiful old building on the side of a canal that used to be a bank.  It is kind of modern on the inside with spiral staircases that could kill you and marble finishes and such.  There were lots of windows (a trend I'm starting to see in most Swedish structures) and a glass ceiling and a very modern feel.  The school has a strong aesthetics program (which is really art and design and such) and it is pretty hard to get into, but the program I am in is the social sciences program which has only my class in the grade.

My school is very very small - 310 students in the entire place.  High school in Sweden is 10-12 grade, but even then, that's tiny.  The building is small as well, so it makes sense.  My klass consists of 25 students, 5 boys and the rest girls.  I was given a welcome as the exchange student so I think everyone pretty much knew me.  Overall, I was very optimistic.

Today I went to the first official day.  ALL BY MYSELF I walked from my house to the public bus station and took the bus to the center of the city where I walked about 10 minutes to the school.  How's that for independent!  *Shout out to all the people who make fun of me for my old fear of public transportation and horrible sense of direction.*  They started by dividing us up into groups of five and giving us a paper with instructions on places we need to find throughout the city.  They literally just let us loose for a few hours and told us to be back at a certain time.  It's so strange to be in a country where they're allowed to do that and the teachers are funny and you call them by their first name and take embarrassing pictures with them.

I've been warned many times that people will most likely not be all too friendly at first; Swedes are very reserved and will not likely approach me.  They may also be a bit shy about speaking English with me.  My small group of five were friendly, however, and we got along splendidly.  From there I met a few other students and I even made plans with a couple to go fika next week :) I'd say it was a successful day.  I'm pretty proud of myself, I must say.  I'm not going to say that it was easy, but I realize now that people were preparing me for the worst.

When we all got back in time (Swedes are always punctual), we crossed the canal and walked up some cobblestone alley ways to the school's other location.  This school was the technical one, so it was mostly boys versus my school which was mostly girls.  We went there for lunch because that's where the tiny little cafeteria is.  The wifi name and password was taped to the wall so that occupied us for a while before we lazily made our way back to the classroom.  They took some pictures of us and then decided to let us out two hours early.  Sweden: 1, America: 0

So just some tips to anyone who may be interested in going abroad:

1.)  It is so hard.  They tell you it will be hard but trust me, it is ten times that.  Going in with confidence is fine and all, just know that it will be shattered pretty quickly.  I can't even begin to list the number of things that will be tugging on your heartstrings and messing with your head.  I was an emotional wreck for the first week (It's been a week and a day so I figured I could say it in past tense) and it was rough.

2.)  You're going to be homesick, even if you think you won't be.  It's worse when you are sad, but when you are occupied and happy it is not bad.

3.)  A tip is to write things down or express them in some way.  Not only does it help you but it will be valuable to look back on.  I'm not even kidding when I say I have already written 25 pages in my journal this early in.

4.)  Also, don't ever be alone.  When you're alone you are sad and that's never a good thing.  Try to be busy and don't really think.  A good routine helps a lot.

5.)  Try your absolute very best!  Throw your whole self into studying your language and everything works out.

6.)  Make it a rule to only go on social media and talk with people from home when you are really happy and nothing will get you down.  It is the opposite of a good idea to do that when you are sad.

7.)  Most importantly, however, know what stands behind you.  You don't need to talk to your parents to feel their support.  You should know that people have confidence in you, otherwise you wouldn't be there.  The organization who accepted you, your parents, your friends, your church, your host family, etc.

It must sound pretentious that I'm giving out advice a week and a day into my exchange, but this has been the most incredible week of my life.  Crazy ups and downs and tons of memories.  Every day feels longer, which is usually a good thing.  I feel that I have grown in my days here and I am already well on my way to knowing myself on a new level.  I recommend an exchange to everyone, but not anyone will like it because it really does take a key attitude in a person to make it a successful year.  Let's hope I have that!!

Misha

The cat only uses me </3 me with my journal of course

Creeping on the host family

One of the buildings my group came across wandering around the city

A cute little bistro or something in a quiet corner tucked away in the city

First day of school

Orientation Pictures

Here are some pictures from the orientation that I promised earlier!

So I like ducks (In front of the royal palace)

The view from the porch during fika :)

Two of my closest friends from Germany, Joan and Greta. This was during a midnight swim!

One of the cheery buildings

My group singing a Swedish kid's song during a skit

The field where we did a lot of activities.  There were always random Swedes swimming and picknicking.  Maybe if you zoom in you can see little naked children jumping in the water

The three other American students sitting on the dock

I can't get over this beautiful water.  My YFU nametag to the right...

The dining room.  There is a porch to the right that isn't pictured

Lazy afternoons on the docks with Rebecca

You just can't beat those Swedish sunsets

A picture Joan took of me the first night

Just an Update

So, good afternoon??  Who knows, it's always sleeping time for me.  I am honestly constantly tired and drowsy, it's a struggle.  My mind is working so hard to understand things!  My mind is really fuzzy and slow and I think my initial adrenaline rush is starting to wear off.

For those worried about my safety, I have safely gotten to my host family and I am not settled in quite yet, but I am getting there.  I took a fairly long train ride to the Gothenburg central train station with a few other students and met my host dad, Lars, and my host brother, Vegard on the platform.  It was a pretty exciting moment (one of the most exciting according to YFU).  I got to meet my host mom, Eva a little later when she came home from work.  Dinner was fun followed by a short walk.  My new home happens to rest on the top of a very large hill, so yay for that.

My host family also has a cat, which I was pretty excited about since I have never lived with a furry animal before.  It turns out that she is quite the free spirit and lives mostly outside, but when she is in, she will beg for attention and let you pet her for a while before attacking.  Don't pet her if she is laying on her back purring, it's only a little bit before she bites and scratches you for no reason.  Sometimes it's fun to provoke her a bit and pull your hand back fast enough to get away.  Just trying to see how far it goes.  But in general it's playing with fire and the conclusion is I am very scared of her.  I have some cuts already!

The next day, Sunday, I was pretty tired when I woke up and my family went to church.  Since Lars is the bishop, he left earlier and the rest of us went about twenty minutes before it started.  In this ward, Sacrament Meeting is actually at the end of the day, so I started with Young Women's.  There were only a few girls there, but about 10 boys that later joined us for Sunday school.  Everything was in Swedish, and a lot of my energy was exerted trying to understand it or at least getting a good idea.  Every once and a while someone would translate something for me, but generally throughout the day I was handed a lot of papers and included in lots of challenges and expectations set.  It was pretty overwhelming.  The congregation is pretty small, but I suppose a little larger than you would expect.  It is apparently one of two wards in the Gothenburg area.

Later that night Lars's daughter Mette, who has moved out of the house came to visit for dinner.  She is so sweet and also made us a dessert which was much appreciated.  We played Ticket to Ride, Europe version, which I won of course.  I got to practice my colors in asking for different cards.

Today, Monday, Mette invited me and Vegard to play volleyball with her and the missionaries, as it was their P-Day.  Vegard and I set out and saw a bit of the city as we used the public transportation (which is so nice) and found our way to the main park which is also something of a zoo as well.  It was pretty fun and we spent a few hours there.  On the way home, Vegard and I stopped for some cinnamon rolls which were delicious and I went to the closest pharmacy to buy things like conditioner and mouthwash.  Apparently no one in Sweden knows what a loofa is and I'm so sad (next care package? Yes?) I will be sticking with my small travel size for the time being.

It's funny that my host brother knows so little about this country that he grew up in.  I tried to get him to explain fika to me and it turned out that I knew more than he.  So we went home and had a "fika" and I showed him and Lars my favorite Japanese tea as well as some Reese's.  It's interesting that many Swedes don't like them, or at least peanut butter.  I guess the whole salty sweet thing doesn't sit well with them.

I have been learning a few more words and such in Swedish throughout my past few days.  My family is good about stopping every now and then to point out a word to me.  I need to buy a small notebook or something to start writing them down.  What's interesting about my family is that my host dad and his kids moved to Sweden from Norway about ten years ago, so they speak both Swedish and Norwegian in the house.  It's going to throw me off quite a bit, as I'm here to learn Swedish...

Bye!

Orientation and First Impressions

Hej!!

It's been a while without wifi at orientation, but I am currently on the platform waiting for my train at the Stockholm Central Station headed to Göteborg where I will meet my host family!  I'm so excited and more than a little nervous.

These past couple days have been amazing and quite a blur.  There was a lot of lugging around suitcases, but it was nice that there was always someone who offered to help at every stop.  The plane ride to Stockholm from Frankfurt was surreal.  At our gate, they checked us in and we were taken to a bus that drove us out to the runway where we walked up the stairs to our plane.  It was a first for me doing that.  It was an exciting moment.  Rebecca and I sat together again and listened to music and finished my Swedish language packet.  I saw my first bit of Stockholm and it was breathtaking.  The city is on an archipelago and there is sparkling water everywhere!  The moment our wheels touched the Swedish runway, Rebecca and I squealed and I froze, suddenly realizing that I won't be back to the U.S. for another 10 months.  We turned to each other and almost at the same time we said "What did we get ourselves into?!"  Well I still don't have an answer to that, but hopefully I will have a good idea soon.

Once we landed, we waited at baggage claim and met five Swiss students.  We all went out and met some of the cheering YFU leaders with huge signs.  We were put into small vans and it was about an hour long ride to the camp.  I sat up front with the driver, who was an exchange student to Japan in high school.  My observations thus far were the number of Volvos and Saabs on the streets.  The ads were prettier and everything was cleaner under a perfect blue sky.

Our camp was on the shore of a lake/river (since Stockholm is an archipelago I still can't quite decide what the bodies of water qualify as?)  We were surrounded by the clean water and lots of green trees.  The air just seems to be sweeter and fresher and there never seemed to be enough to fill my lungs.  We were greeted by several cheering, peppy young leaders who all either worked at the YFU Sweden offices or had gone on exchanges and were now volunteering.   The leaders throughout the whole trip were so amazing and fun, it was the best.

That first day was so exhausting and it was quite a struggle to stay awake to overcome my jetlag as soon as possible.  The whole day was really relaxed as we waited for all the students to arrive.  We took an informal walk to the royal palace, which is like 20 minutes away.  It was big and beautiful, especially with all the water (again).  We had a nice YFU meeting at the end of the night and then it was bed.

I shared my room with two girls from Germany and a girl from Switzerland.  My small group, with a single leader, were all girls from different countries - Thailand, USA, Switzerland, Hungary, Germany, Australia.  The orientation was an English one, so nearly everyone had to speak and listen and read in a language other than their native (for most).  I felt kinda bad.  It was like we English-speaking people were kind of stepping on their toes but really everyone does speak the language and communicates with English to people who aren't necessarily American or English or anything traditionally such.  I loved meeting the students, they're so interesting.

So let's talk about the observations I have made about Sweden so far.

1) Nudity.  The showers are two different rooms that close with two shower heads and two sinks.  There is a small glass divider in between the two showers but no curtain or anything.  You get pretty comfortable with your friends or with whomever is next to you in the shower line pretty quickly.  Also, if there is a group of people just hanging out on the docs, there is often a call for random swims.  You're swim suit is in your room?  No problem just use your underwear.  The leaders, boys and girls, all shared a room (but not the students, don't worry Bob).  People walked around in their underwear or just a towel and there was not a single eye blinked.

2) Food.  Swedes are like Hobbits, they eat all the time.  I kid you not, there was not a single time during the orientation when I was hungry because we ate so often.  Typically, a Swede will have breakfast, fika (a coffee and snack break), lunch, fika, dinner, fika. The food is not particularly heavy or anything but it's interesting.  During the orientation, we only had one fika after lunch at about three (which made the Swedes at camp very upset).  They seem to always be hungry and they can't function without almost constant nourishment.  What's funny is not a single one is overweight.  I was in line for dinner behind two Swedish leaders and one of them turned to me with an absolutely worried, distraught face, "You must eat a lot now, because this is our last meal before bed."  She was so worried, poor thing.  Regardless, they had fruit and crackers as a snack for anyone during our later activities that night.  Also, they (and other Europeans) eat with a fork in the left hand, knife in the right.  They are careful with their food and use their knife to sculpt eat mouth full on their fork before eating it.  Very interesting - but I have little patience for it.

3) Fika.  As I mentioned before, fika is a social institution in Sweden where you and a friend or family or a group of people go out to a coffee shop or just at home or work to sit for a while and socialize, always with a hot drink of some sort and a sweet treat.  Let me tell you, the Swedes love their fika.  Our leaders were really the only Swedish people we could meet but they were a pretty great example.  They would start to get antsy and look at their watch, counting down and announcing the minutes left until fika.  They were legitimately upset that there wasn't a morning fika.  Because of so many breaks for food and free time throughout the day, I felt that we hardly did anything!  It was still a blast though.

4) The nature!  Again, it is so breath taking!  The Swedes have a law that anyone can enjoy nature publicly.  Unless it is private property (which isn't common) or someone's backyard, you can go out and camp, swim, pick berries, anything.  I don't blame them, their country is absolutely gorgeous.  Water everywhere, green everywhere.  Honestly it is like nature 2.0 because it was all the good with none of the bad.  It was really clean, no litter or anything, and very fresh.  We were next to the lake but there were no mosquitos.  Or at least none that bit me.  Also no uncomfortable humidity or even a bad smell from the water.  If you went for a swim, you didn't smell like it afterwords.  There weren't very many bugs that irritated us either.  Come on America, get it together.

Anyways my past few days have been so fun, and I'm nervous to face the real world without my new friends for the next year.  I can't wait to meet them again at the end of the year orientation when we can all speak together in Swedish!

As for now, goodbye!

P.S. Here are a few pictures but there are more to come!

The stairs to the plane!

Hello, Stockholm

Front of the Royal palace

The back of the palace

Gates at the palace grounds

With Rebecca in front of the palace